As such, both freestyle (somewhat similar to what you see in American high schools and colleges) and Greco Roman, each of which dated back to the 1896 Games in Greece, will soon be history. Wrestling can try to get back in, but the odds are long.
This is a poor decision and it would be only slightly less poor of a
decision if it was modern pentathlon (a five-event competition of
fencing, horse riding, swimming, running and shooting) that got the boot
instead.
You can tell why they kept that sport in instead of wrestling. Americans have won only one 9 medals total in modern pentathlon since 1912. (I am counting the team medals as one medal) We have also never won a gold in the competition at all.
Americans have dominated wrestling since it was introduced in the Olympics. We have won 47 golds alone in freestyle wrestling since it entered the games in 1904. You add to this the fact that Americans can easily dominate women's wrestling as well going forward. There are just too many American medals coming out of wrestling for a biased and corrupt organization like the IOC to tolerate.
I'm sure the IOC figures that anything that makes it harder for the US to win the medal count is okay with them. I am sure they will try to limit the amount of swimming medals while increasing the amount of diving medals in their next move.
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